The embodiments described herein relate generally to purchasing products via an exchange system and, more particularly, to methods and systems for providing an online exchange system that facilitates a reverse auction using anonymous seller bids.
When wishing to purchase a product, many consumers spend a great amount of otherwise valuable time traveling to various merchandisers and/or browsing the Internet in order to compare prices. At least some known systems enable a consumer to search the Internet for a particular manufacturer or model of a product, and to manually compare returned prices. Moreover, at least some known systems enable consumers to bid for a particular product online. However, such systems do not allow for reverse auctions using anonymous seller bids for a product in order to provide lower prices to the consumer. In addition, such systems do not anticipate the constraints and/or motivations of buyers and sellers within the consumer product marketplace. Moreover, such systems do not enable consumers to join forces in order to form a cooperative group that encourages sellers to bid in advance in order to be a low cost provider of a product. Furthermore, such known systems do not enable sellers to obtain instantaneous information related to the marketplace, and to use that information to purchase product more cost effectively from manufacturers.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide an online dynamic-bidding exchange for use in a reverse auction among anonymous sellers, in order to provide consumers with the lowest possible price of a product and requiring less travel and/or search time for the consumer. Moreover, it is desirable for such an exchange to provide potential buyers with quick offers for the sale of products at the lowest possible price, and to provide a specific offer to the potential buyers without the need to visit or make direct contact with the seller.